Interesting article on Favre/Rodgers

In the article, Souhan doesn’t give enough credit to Favre for his streak (which like Cal Ripkin’s streak, truly was amazing) and how reliability at the QB position can be key to the development of a winning organization. (Though Rodgers has been fairly reliable too…despite not having a streak to speak of.) And he also doesn’t make enough of the fact that Favre does hold many NFL records – a huge accomplishment to be sure. Nor does he talk much about the league being a bit different in the 90s (as it’s more of a passing league now than it was then).

Still, his other arguments are quite sound and frankly difficult to refute. Rodgers is an astonishingly efficient QB who can make all the plays that great QBs need to be able to make in the modern game. His career passer rating of 101.2 (through I believe week 3 of this season – so it’s probably higher now) is nearly 5 points higher than anyone else in history – and the next tier includes QBs like Steve Young, Tom Brady, Tony Romo. Given how many quality QBs are within just a few points of one another in the 94-96 QB rating range, Rodgers’ 5+ point lead is simply staggering.

Some of you may recall a post I put up a few years ago after Favre retired (the 2008 retirement). I’ll admit after re-reading it, it was a rather meek/tentative post. But my general point was, just before Rodgers’ first full season as a starter, that maybe, just maybe the Pack would be OK with this guy. The title of the post was “Could Rodgers be…more effective than the recent Favre? ” He’s definitely been that.

2 Responses to “Interesting article on Favre/Rodgers”

There’s no question in my mind that Favre was a pretty flawed QB. The times that he had his greatest successes (particularly during the 96 season), he had a lot of talent around him that did a good job of covering for his mistakes.

I’ve had a chance to re-watch the games of the ’96 season recently, and Favre was pretty much as reckless then as he ever was(*). But he had a #1-ranked defense and an MVP caliber return game that did a good job of covering for his mistakes, as well as making sure he rarely got in a position where he needed to take big risks.

The consecutive starts record is impressive, but I think there were times it hurt both Favre and his teams (he probably should’ve been benched after he got knocked out of the Bills game, if for no other reason than his own health).

Favre’s consecutive starts record goes hand-in-hand with his touchdowns record and his interceptions record. He didn’t have the best percentages, but he made it up on volume. He was also very tough physically.

Rodgers has always reminded me of Steve Young — who started his NFL career as a USFL refugee and Joe Montana’s understudy. Not everyone was convinced back then that he would be a great NFL quarterback.